


it's my whole heart—while tried and tested, it's mine

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Action & Romance, Adrienette | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Blood and Violence, F/M, Hostage Situations, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, Podfic Welcome, Puns & Word Play, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, implied/referenced suicidal ideation, self-rescuing princess(es), sitting these two clowns down to talk about their feelings, still Ladybug and Chat Noir without the magic armor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 08:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18426969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: There's a Tumblr post by trickerydickerydock, inVenomfandom: superhero peril tropes andtell them where your boyfriend is, Eddie.Adrien has been held for ransom before, and he knows the routine: be patient, don't annoy anyone who's armed, and wait for the police to find a solution that the kidnapper(s) don't want his father thinking is an option.But this time Adrien wasn't the only one taken. He wasn't even the primary target; that would be Chat Noir's only known civilian friend, the only person he's ever paid attention to after hearing her declare her love for him. Since all anyone knows Adrienisto Ladybug is her celebrity crush, he might be an afterthought, or just an annoyance along for the ride. And he still has his ring.Hawkmoth probably hasn't seen that or any Tumblr post. (Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Tell them where your boyfriend is, Eddie.) Has Marinette?





	it's my whole heart—while tried and tested, it's mine

**Author's Note:**

> [The annotated edition!](https://alexseanchai.neocities.org/ml-my-whole-heart-annotated.html) (It may not work on phones on portrait mode—it doesn't on mine—but putting my phone on landscape mode fixed that for me, and my tablet has a wide enough screen it works fine on portrait.)

Adrien rubs the back of his neck and doesn't say anything substantive to Sabrina's fifth question about what Gabriel Fashions will next set trends with. The nondisclosure agreement is baked into his modeling contract, there are reasons he owns so many identical tees and screwing with paparazzi is only one of them, and it's so much _easier_ to shrug noncommittally and ask Chloé's opinion; she at least actually has one.

Chloé halts Sabrina with a word—more impressive than it sounds, given Sabrina's carrying most of Chloé's purchases and is keeping up with her better than Adrien is. More impressive of Sabrina, anyway. Chloé glares down the block a moment, along a row of trees casting short shadows, then wheels around. "Just Dupain-Cheng," she says. "Let's take another route, I don't want to smell her."

"You go on," Adrien says, nettled, and waves Chloé and Sabrina in the direction they're already going, the way they just came. He can see Marinette now, weaving among passersby a block and a half away, a stack of white boxes in her arms—a bakery delivery, he bets, and he'd like to go smell the deliciousness even if he doesn't get—

Marinette falls.

Slides to the sidewalk, really, Adrien observes distantly; he's running for her, bags abandoned. The boxes have fallen, buns and cookies spilling out, a blue-iced cake splattered on the concrete—but they're only fallen, not flung.

The light changes and Adrien should wait at the corner but someone is gathering Marinette into his arms. No one Adrien recognizes: he hurtles through the crosswalk, ignoring blaring car horns. Akumas can be discreet. Chameleon was, sort of; Lila isn't that good at subtle. Vanisher was so good at hiding no one noticed for two days Sabrina was gone. The man who is carrying Marinette is heading for a small blue sedan, which beeps and flashes its lights, reflected on the bumper of the car in front.

"SABRINA!" roars Adrien, because he ditched Gorilla for Chloé's shopping trip. "CALL YOUR FATHER!"

The man opens the sedan door and starts to load Marinette into its back seat and doesn't look up till Adrien is barreling full force into him. Adrien can't transform—too many people, and feeling like it's a butterfly infestation doesn't mean it _is_ one—but as the man shoves him away from the car, Adrien wishes he could. Marinette's spilled half out of the car and Adrien pivots to throw his body weight at the man again. The man trips him but Adrien grabs on, both going down—

A neon mask on the man's face: a purple butterfly.

Adrien hates being—

* * *

—right.

Indoors. Afternoon shadows. Sitting in a chair, each of his limbs bound to each of its, and a strap round his waist into the bargain. His ring's still on his finger; his phone isn't in his pocket. He can feel Plagg, perched in his left lung, purring just at the edge of too quiet for Adrien to hear. Someone else is in the room, breathing too rapidly.

"Marinette?" Adrien guesses.

A sharp inhale. "Adrien?"

He twists his head around. That must be Marinette behind him, but he can't see more than the edge of her; there's a phone on a tripod on a small table, as one might to take landscape photos, or film without shaky cam. His chair faces a window, framed with white lace curtains, nothing outside but partly cloudy skies. Marinette must be facing the only door. The room is small enough that alone might set his spine to crawling, even with its emptiness creating the illusion of more space: there's nothing else to see but the periwinkle wallpaper.

"I'd think I was getting held for ransom again," Adrien says, "but that was an akuma, and you went down first."

Chat Noir could bust them out in a heartbeat. But then Marinette would _know_. And that phone's rear-facing camera is aimed at them; Adrien has no way of knowing if they're being filmed, but he's already facing death by paternal disappointment; he doesn't need partnerly fury too.

"Did I?" Marinette asks. "I was delivering Mme. Desrosiers's cake and I blinked and now I'm chained to this chair."

"We were shopping," Adrien tells her. "I saw you fall, and—" How _did_ he know something was wrong? "Usually when you trip, whatever you're holding gets scattered to the winds. Instead you kind of folded over. I was thinking medical emergency, and then I was thinking kidnapping, and—well, it's definitely an akuma," he says, contemplating several languages' favorite vulgar phrases.

Marinette says, precisely enunciated, "Fuck this noise."

The door opens with the quiet snick of a latch. "Ah," says a voice from nightmares. _If you want to save Paris and all its people,_ Chat Noir heard him say, _I'll give you one last chance._ "You're awake."

"Hawkmoth," spits Marinette.

"Be polite, girl," snaps Hawkmoth, "or your lover will be getting you back in pieces."

"Lover?" asks Adrien, honestly bewildered. "What—" That can only mean Luka, and what could Hawkmoth want with _Luka_? Unless—

—unless Hawkmoth _knew_ , when he akumatized Tom Dupain if not before, exactly who broke Marinette's heart.

"Chat Noir isn't coming for me," Marinette tells Hawkmoth—how did she— "Obvious trap is _obvious_."

Oh. She doesn't know.

"Oh no," Hawkmoth answers. "He will." (Oh _good_.) "Either Chat Noir will come to rescue you, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng, or he will follow his beloved Ladybug when she comes for her beloved Adrien."

"The fuck she will!" snarls Adrien. "She's going to collect a few more teammates and come smash your sorry face in! If the police don't beat her here," he adds, grinning viciously, though Hawkmoth can't see. "There were witnesses to our abduction. Including a police lieutenant's daughter and the Mayor's daughter. By now my father knows I'm gone." He hopes. "He has a rule for this sort of situation, you know."

Hawkmoth probably doesn't. Either that or he's way more invested in Ladybug loving Adrien than _Adrien_ is. As Adrien, there's no way he is more to her than her celebrity crush—if that—and Hawkmoth does not know he already has her partner.

"The whole point of holding someone for ransom—that _is_ your plan, right?" Adrien checks, and doesn't pause. "Trade us for the Miraculouses? The point is, the kidnappers present two options. Pay the ransom or lose the victim. They're counting on an overwhelming emotional response," he continues, grateful for the first time in his life that his father doesn't _do_ those. "They're counting on their targets _reacting_. Without thinking. Without finding a _third way_. By now, Ladybug knows that. If she knows this is a Ladybug sort of problem at all."

After all, she might not. Adrien has no way to know if anyone else saw an akuma, not just the nondescript driver of an unmemorable car, and past that she probably only knows what the police and Hawkmoth have told the public.

"Obvious trap is obvious," Adrien repeats. "And Ladybug is _really good_ at finding a third way."

"Adrien shut up!" Marinette says, a half-strangled whisper. "Sword cane!"

Oh _fuck_ —

"Do be silent, Adrien," Hawkmoth says.

Adrien swallows a furious response. He can't let Marinette get hurt— _can't_ —but he can't be sure Chat Noir can Cataclysm himself loose and take down Hawkmoth in five minutes flat, either. Getting out of range with Marinette in tow isn't looking good either. And there's a wedge of Camembert in his jacket, but if his transformation falls before Hawkmoth is incapacitated or he and Marinette are free, he might as well gift-wrap his Miraculous for Hawkmoth, because Plagg won't have a chance to recharge.

For a long moment, there is no sound but three people breathing.

"So you can be obedient," Hawkmoth muses. "Good. All Paris is watching this livestream," he continues, and Adrien thinks of his father: the sort of offhanded remark that isn't at all. "I advise you to convince Ladybug and Chat Noir to surrender. My akuma is waiting outside the Louvre; they may hand her their Miraculouses whenever they are ready. When I have both, as well as those of any allies they may summon, you two may go free."

"And if not?" asks Marinette, her voice steady again.

"How long does it take to die of thirst?"

The door snicks closed. The lock clicks.

"Well, we're fucked." Marinette snaps that in the same tone she uses to tell Adrien about Lila's latest bullshit.

"Have some patience," Adrien tells her, craning his neck around for another look at the room. He learns nothing new. "Ladybug hasn't let us down yet. Just give her some time to work."

"She isn't coming, though. You said that," Marinette reminds him. "You said she won't come."

"I said she has better sense than to take one of the choices a kidnapper gives her," Adrien replies, tugging at his bindings. Four pairs of handcuffs, wrists and ankles (mistakes were made, but not enough to be useful right now), and a belt through the spindles of the chair back. "She'll find something." Plagg can easily get them both loose, if Marinette is bound similarly, but even if _Plagg_ can't be caught on camera, they'll be spotted the instant they move farther than the cuffs allow. No way Hawkmoth isn't monitoring the livestream. Or the Peacock Miraculous wielder, he realizes, who may or may not even _be_ here. Fuuuck. "How are you tied up?"

"Four pairs of handcuffs and a designer belt. You?"

"Same."

"Thought so." A scraping sound. "I can probably knock my chair over, but that sounds like the opposite of helpful."

"And way uncomfortable," Adrien agrees. His chair isn't nailed down either.

They fall silent.

"This is my fault," Marinette says quietly. "I don't know if you saw it, Adrien? A few months ago, one the Ladyblog filed under 'suspected akuma'? Alya called it Beanstalk Jack because nobody who knew anything was talking about it?"

"I saw that post," Adrien says neutrally; it's even true. "Big thorny vine near your place?"

"In," Marinette corrects. "In my apartment. Several things could have gone differently and then my papa wouldn't have been akumatized and then we wouldn't _be_ here."

"What do you mean?"

"I told Chat Noir I'm in love with him." Her voice is utterly flat, like she's ironed out every emotional wrinkle. "My parents overheard, and they invited him to brunch, and he shouldn't have come at all but—I cried," she says. "I knew he was in love with Ladybug. I didn't _want_ him to fall for me. But when he turned me down, I cried and ran."

"I'm sorry," Adrien says. Sometimes that means _I sympathize_ , or _I regret_. Sometimes, _I accept blame_.

"And Papa—I'd never brought anyone home to meet my parents before," Marinette says. "Not romantically. Papa got overexcited. And when I cried, I guess he got upset, because next I knew I was in a cage of thorns, heading for the stratosphere. I don't know most of what happened next," she notes, "and Papa can't remember, and I haven't dared ask Chat. I've been hoping Hawkmoth didn't hear either of them say anything to make it sound like I'm someone Chat Noir cares about. But…"

"But you think they did," Adrien finishes.

He can't remember a word of what he told Papa-Garou. He's certain he didn't say he loves Marinette. But that he cares about her?

This is why Ladybug has always been so steadfast about secret identities. Isn't it.

"But I think they did," Marinette confirms. She sighs. "I should have just kept my big mouth shut."

"If it makes you feel better," Adrien says, betting it won't, "at least you're pretty sure Chat Noir feels _something_ for you. I think I got brought along part because I annoyed that akuma, part because Fartmoth thinks I'm Ladybug's celebrity crush. I'd love to know where he got that idea," he adds, loading his tone with sarcasm. He sincerely would, if it's true, since it certainly isn't something _she's_ ever told him, nor has it ever appeared on the Ladyblog; that's not the point. "I mean, she's definitely mine, but that doesn't say anything about the other way around. If it did, she'd be all lovesick over half the city."

"Adrien, I don't know if you noticed," snaps Marinette, "but Hawkmoth carries a sword. It is long, pointy, and very sharp, and it has my _blood on it_. We know he is okay with killing people. And he is certainly watching us. Please do not convince him you are no use as a hostage, because he just might kill you!"

"Let him," Adrien says before he can think better of it. "Ladybug won't let it stick, the sight will distress my father enough he'll deign to express a little fatherly affection, and between now and then I'm dead weight either way."

Plagg growls. It's only a hair louder than his purr was, which was soft enough Adrien hadn't noticed he'd fallen silent, and it isn't as though Adrien and Plagg haven't discussed any of this before—but Adrien's figured Plagg out by now, knows he cares for many of his wielders more than he wants to, more than he feels he should, and for all Plagg claims it's only cupboard love, Adrien knows it will hurt Plagg if he dies. After all, it already has.

(Adrien stands by that strategic assessment nonetheless.)

A series of little thumps and scrapes behind him; Marinette herself is silent. Adrien twists his head, and—huh, okay, she's scooting her chair closer to his, angling it to bring herself alongside him. There's a scratch on her neck, lined red with drying blood. Her blue eyes burn like stars.

"If you die on me," Marinette says, precisely enunciated, "I will kill you myself."

Adrien swallows.

That should probably not sound so hot.

She probably could, too, he thinks. She's wearing a white tee, her usual blazer nowhere in sight, and it's…pretty obvious she's built. It isn't usually; it can't be, he'd have noticed. Adrien can probably take her in a fight—he's bigger and stronger—but all his combat experience is working with _Chat Noir's_ physical capacity. If Marinette wants to kill him with her bare hands, the moment he tries to do something _Adrien_ isn't capable of, she'll have him dead to rights.

That should really not sound so hot.

 _Ladybug_ , he reminds himself. Ladybug, who may or may not be out there looking for Adrien, but who is very probably wondering where the fuck to find Chat Noir.

Marinette nods once, firmly, and looks around the room some more. "Think Chat Noir is watching the livestream yet?" she wonders.

"Why are you asking me?" Adrien returns. Marinette hates liars; he cannot, therefore, say yes, and he will not say no.

He swallows again. Ladybug won't kill him later, he thinks. Probably. Much.

"I hope Ladybug's listening," Adrien says. "Since we're relying on her." He can't remember exactly what he said to her, in the sewers on Heroes' Day. He isn't sure if the exact wording matters. "I don't see how we're going to get out of this one. But like she said. We can't lose hope. If we do," he adds, in case she needs the extra cue, "we're up shit creek."

Marinette stills.

The door snicks back open. "I don't hear you being very convincing," says Hawkmoth, in much the same tone Adrien's father uses when critiquing his performance: _I expect better than this from you, and I know you are falling short only because you choose to._

Adrien bites back a snarl.

"We _don't_ ," Marinette spits back, "negotiate with terrorists."

"Such a vicious choice of word," Hawkmoth tells her, and Adrien watches Marinette bend her head backward: the sword tip at her throat dimples her skin. "I never meant for this to go this far. If Ladybug and Chat Noir had surrendered their Miraculouses on the first or second day, I would never have needed to send out another akuma."

"And none of this would have happened?" Marinette asks. She flicks a glance sideways at Adrien—it's the only reason she looks nervous—and stares up at Hawkmoth. "You're wrong. Without you, we'd never be here. We know who the bad guy is," she says, and Adrien can hear Ladybug saying the same words, a lifetime ago. "Let's not reverse the roles here."

"A fool quoting a fool," Hawkmoth says. A drop of blood wells up around the tip of his sword.

"They're the right ones for this job," Marinette answers, unflinching. "Trust me on this."

That's—

No one heard Ladybug say that, except Chat Noir. No one but she heard his reply.

There's no way. There's no _way_.

"Clearly not," says Hawkmoth.

—Right. Phalanxes of victory trumpets later. Busy now.

"Why?" Adrien asks him. "Because they won't meekly hand over control of a lot of easily misused magical power? I don't know what _your_ mother ever told you," he says, "but _my_ mother taught me, if you want someone to give you something, you ask for it. Politely," he adds. "Without holding them hostage for it. And you don't punch them in the face first. That just tells them they can't trust you."

"No one in this city can trust you," Marinette says. "Ladybug and Chat Noir least of all. Whatever you want to use their powers to get, save yourself some trouble and kiss it goodbye."

"Ah," says Hawkmoth. His sword withdraws. "Will you tell my son who is responsible for the loss of his mother? It is not I, certainly. I have been trying to gain the power to save her."

Adrien snorts. "Why, what happened to her?" he asks. If Hawkmoth's son knows what his father is doing and hasn't told anyone—and Adrien thinks they would have heard if he had—then he is an accessory at the least; whether he knows or not, if he would _approve_ , then he deserves to get chopped to bits and flame-broiled. "Did she die because someone was driving under the influence? Driver's fault. Did she die because someone put peanut butter in their brownies and didn't warn people they weren't allergy friendly? Blame the baker. Someone murder her? Murder him back for all I care."

He bites back the _it's not like you'd get caught_. If Hawkmoth hasn't figured out he could have been a terrifying serial killer if he stuck to subtle akumas and didn't announce himself, Adrien will not be who tells him.

"Cancer get her?" Adrien barrels on. "That's no one's fault. Shit happens sometimes. Sucks to be your kid."

"Assuming he exists," says Marinette. "Assuming his mother ever existed. Which I doubt," she adds, flat and sharp as the sword Hawkmoth is probably about to _kill her with_. "Nice try, getting Adrien to sympathize with your imaginary son. We both know you're lying. It's public knowledge Adrien's mother's dead."

"Do _not_ —" Hawkmoth cuts himself off.

"I hate liars," Marinette snaps, and says a few more things too: Adrien hears without understanding, unable to listen through the roaring in his ears.

 _Do not say she is dead,_ Gabriel Agreste has said before, _until you or I have seen that she is._

It isn't an argument Adrien has cared to have very often. After all, if Émilie Agreste is alive, then she left. Then she had a reason to leave. Then she did not have a reason to stay, or to bring Adrien with her.

It's easier to know, without letting his father hear that he knows, that his mother is dead and he will never know why. It's easier to avoid giving his father reason to remind him there is hope she'll come home. It's easier to never bring it up: to never hear the anger and pain Gabriel Agreste puts into that sentence, into especially its second word.

Adrien considers that thought as he might a box cutter, or a razor blade. If he sets it against his skin, he will bleed, and it will hurt, and for a moment he might feel something real.

(He has never done this with literal blades. Before he and Chloé got him into Collège Françoise Dupont, he hadn't yet brought himself to that point; after, akuma attacks have been frequent enough—and Plagg's voice grating enough, and masked parkour runs happening enough—that the impulse hasn't come up in a way he can't turn aside.)

If Ladybug has ever seriously suspected more than one person to be Hawkmoth, Adrien can't recall the other.

The room is quiet, except for two people breathing, and the ringing in his ears.

"Marinette?" asks Adrien.

She's been watching him, he realizes, scared and worried and as determined as Ladybug always is not to let it show. "Sorry I mentioned your mother," she says, tilting her head—her earring, he sees, a simple black cabochon. She probably has both, then. "I know it hurts."

"Not your fault," he says, and drums his fingers against the chair limbs, first the left hand (she looks down at it), then the right (he sees her note the different sound). He looks over her head at the livestreaming phone.

Gabriel Agreste, he thinks, does not want Adrien to die, or even get more than glancingly hurt. Gabriel Agreste, however, is Hawkmoth. Adrien cannot assume Hawkmoth cares about Adrien much, or Marinette at all. And frankly, given the number and variety of Adrien's revenge-on-Hawkmoth fantasies and given what he is beginning to suspect is Hawkmoth's dangerously obsessive single-mindedness—Adrien knows which parent he gets that trait from—Ladybug and Chat Noir are probably going to die at Hawkmoth's earliest opportunity.

…Ladybug may have had a point, about taking all this seriously.

"I owe you a few apologies," Adrien says, refocusing on Marinette. "I—"

How is he supposed to say any of this, with Hawkmoth and all of Paris listening in?

Marinette shakes her head, almost smiling. "Let's just call it square."

Oh look, an opening. "You're exactly right," Adrien says, and grins down at her. "On every angle."

She sputters out a surprised laugh. "Oh, no way," she says. "No _way_." She pauses, Ladybug considering a tactical sacrifice for strategic benefit. "You are way too acute to be this obtuse."

"Glad we got that straight." Adrien's in love. "Hey, what did the complementary angle say to the isosceles triangle?"

Marinette wrinkles her nose. Her eyes light, briefly; she glares. "I will kick you," she informs him.

…She must…really not like Adrien, then. He shouldn't be surprised, he supposes, with as hard as he worked to get Adrien as far as simple friendship with Marinette. Ladybug being Marinette who loves Chat Noir who is Adrien who loves Ladybug isn't going to equal kissing if Marinette doesn't want to kiss Adrien.

This time it feels final.

"There were three medieval kingdoms on the shores of a lake around an island," Adrien says, instead of _nice legs_. Marinette tilts her head, listening; he bets she knows this one, but that's not the point. "They had been having a border dispute over that island for years…"

This joke takes a couple minutes to set up the punchline. He can tell it on autopilot while he gets into modeling mode. If friends and partners is all she wants, that's exactly what he'll give her; he can hide that heartbreak behind everything he should be feeling about his father right now, once he can tell Marinette who Hawkmoth is without Hawkmoth learning he knows, but not yet.

And he can never let her know she hurt him.

When Adrien wraps up the high-pot-and-noose joke, Marinette is watching him in concerned silence. And he can't for the life of him think of anything else to say.

The door clicks open. "I begin to wonder," says Hawkmoth coldly, "whether your so-called heroes are simply afraid. They certainly seem willing to sacrifice both your lives."

"Oh, bullshit," snaps Marinette. "You told them to meet your minion outside the Louvre, right? How many news cameras are outside the Louvre right now?"

"I told you they're going to find their playmates and figure out a third way," Adrien adds. "Think they'll bring police this time?"

"I doubt they will dare," says Hawkmoth, coming into Adrien's line of sight, rapier bared. "Not when two innocent lives are at risk."

Adrien has been swimming in Syren's waters. Climbed Stormy Weather's volcano. Hell, he saw on the news when Stoneheart felled the Montparnasse Tower! No one _knows_ anyone died that day. Officially.

They won't gamble two lives—these two specific lives—to win it all?

He doubts this.

"I doubt you scare them that much," Adrien shoots back. "You don't fight your own battles. Everyone knows that. They've only seen you personally on Heroes' Day, because you had this big dramatic finale planned, and even then it backfired on you."

Hawkmoth's face is tightening, as Father's does with anger he doesn't want to show. He's raising his sword, though it's well clear of them for now.

"You just don't like getting your hands dirty," Adrien continues, smirking. He's sort of morbidly curious now. "I've seen Marinette bleeding worse from paper cuts than she is now. And you haven't hurt _me_ at all. I don't think you dare," he says. Father hates Adrien's defiance, but right now he doesn't have _Father's_ ways to shut Adrien up. "I think you faint at the sight of blood."

The blade flashes, searing across Adrien's left cheek.

He half grins, feeling the blood flowing. "Oh, now you've done it," Adrien tells him. "Congratulations, Fartmoth, you just cost Gabriel Agreste a couple weeks of my photoshoots." Ha. Father forgot that. "Now he's furious with you. Relax, Marinette," he adds; she's glaring at him again, tears flowing unheeded. "I just won a two-week vacation."

Marinette deliberately puts her nose in the air and looks away.

"You should treat your elders with more respect," Hawkmoth says. Adrien's going through his patience _fast_. But if, somehow, Father gets out of this with his reputation intact and keeps custody of Adrien? There is not a lot Gabriel Agreste will dare do to Adrien for insults suffered as Hawkmoth.

And anyway, this is fun. "Pardon my ill manners," Adrien retorts, "Monsieur Fartmoth, _sir_."

Hawkmoth storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

A long silence. Adrien's trying not to laugh. He thinks so is she.

"…Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?" Marinette finally asks.

"To get to the other…" Adrien trails off, giving the livestream his best dawning-comprehension look.

Marinette starts giggling. Adrien joins in.

Yeah, they'll be okay.

So, Adrien thinks. Who knows what, who needs to know what, and what do the two of them need?

Oh, hey. This is the best time he's ever getting for a joke he's been saving since he learned the name of Ladybug's kwami.

" _Welcome to our tropical hideaway,_ " Adrien sings in English, " _you lucky people, you!_ " Marinette is staring at him, frowning. " _If we weren't in the show starting right away, we'd be the audience too! In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room—_ " Now she's struggling not to laugh; good. " _—in the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room, all the birds sing the words and the flowers croon—_ " She gives up and starts laughing. So does Tikki, peering out of what, in the interest of propriety, Adrien will assume is Marinette's bra. " _—in the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room!_ " he finishes.

Never let it be said that Chat Noir is less than dedicated.

Marinette catches her breath, eyeing the door, then the livestreaming phone. She rattles one set of handcuffs. "Think he'd let me up to pee?"

"Don't ask," Adrien suggests, not watching Tikki vanish through Marinette. Plagg, he can feel, is creeping down through Adrien's torso, getting as close as he can to Adrien's right wrist cuff without risking being seen. One of them with one hand free will be enough to get them both loose, given two minutes to work. Adrien grimaces as another thought strikes: "He might want to watch."

(This probably isn't _true_ , but the only reason he isn't telling all of Paris who Hawkmoth is is so Hawkmoth won't know Adrien knows. He is done protecting his father's image. And it probably only isn't true concerning Marinette, not Adrien, and that only because she's a girl and Nathalie can't be far.)

Marinette shudders. "I'm good."

"On the bright side," muses Adrien, "if he catches fire…"

"What—Adrien! Eww!"

Adrien grins. And regrets it: his cheek burns.

"—Oh _shit_!" Marinette twists back to the camera. "My Saturday deliveries! Alix, you can help my parents, right? Rose, Juleka, at the bakery?" Her words spill out, frantic-sounding but clear. "Alya, my weekly run to M. Eastman-Laird, you can take that, I need you to take that—the bakery records have the address, you'll find your ways—bring Nino, he can show him some tricks—oh _no_ , Mme. Desrosiers's cake!"

"Marinette," Adrien says, trying to sound soothing. This isn't how she sounds when she's actually freaking. Not quite.

"It was a birthday cake!" Marinette sobs, her voice picking up speed. "Now the cake's ruined and the party's ruined and she'll never come to our bakery again and it's all my _fault_!"

"Marinette," Adrien says again, and steadily repeats it until she lets herself calm.

She slumps against the spindles of her chair back and smiles at him. "When I get home, I'm turtling up," she says. "I won't want to see anyone for a month."

—Oh. Oooh. — _Oww_ : yeah, no wonder no one's busted their secret identities yet, Adrien thinks, wincing at the too-bright (no brighter) light. Getting close is too much of a headache.

He consciously sets aside the question of who Ladybug—Marinette—would trust with the first Miraculous she could offer, and the second one when that first wielder needed rescue, and who they might be to each other.

"I'm going to sleep on the roof for a while," Adrien says. He may or may not mean the lounge chair on Marinette's balcony. "This room's kinda…" He shrugs, and hisses when the cuffs bite his wrists.

"Oh," says Marinette, quiet. "That's why your room is two stories and the outside wall is all windows."

He swallows. "Yeah."

She looks up at him, eyes shining; the tear tracks from earlier have dried. "Horrificator must have _sucked_."

Huh? Oh. Right. The pod prisons. "I didn't panic," Adrien says; it's the sort of thing he'd try to downplay if it had happened, and Marinette's telling more lies here than he is. "I got through it." He looks out the window. "Slept on the roof, though. I couldn't—"

His words tangle over themselves. Adrien hadn't slept on any roofs that night, but he would have, if Adrien had been confined as he had pretended to be. Because even after his father renovated several rooms and knocked out a bunch of ceiling-and-floor and outside wall so Adrien could have somewhere to sleep that didn't seem, as this room does, too small to breathe in? The mansion walls themselves would have been, and other times _have_ been, an unbearable constraint. There are parts of the building Adrien hasn't seen from the inside for years, because there was never reason to. They're just more parts of the trap.

Where would Gabriel Agreste keep people he's kidnapped?

"You know," says Adrien, "I should invite you over to study sometime. You and Alya and Nino and Chloé." His ears are ringing again; there's a sharp pain in his temple. "My room feels bigger with more people."

Where could Gabriel Agreste exert enough control over the setting and the people for him to feel confident in this plan?

"My Mandarin tutor comes here for my lessons," Adrien says distantly. "You'll like him. I know you've been wanting to learn."

Where _else_?

Marinette watches him for a long moment.

"I would tell you a chemistry joke," she says, "but all the good ones argon."

"How noble of you," Adrien retorts, "actinide care if they're any good. I promise I don't."

"I can tell," Marinette says between snickers.

He should probably clue her in on one more thing. "Helpful grammar tip," Adrien says. "'Farther' is for physical distance, 'further' is for metaphorical distance…" Pause for effect. "And then there's emotional distance."

Marinette stills.

"The same word can mean all three," she says after a moment, with a steely stare doorwards. "If he works at it."

"You know the definition of an elementary particle?" Adrien asks, rather than continue that while Hawkmoth might catch on; he probably hasn't seen that post but that doesn't mean he won't look it up. Marinette shakes her head, so he says, "The dreams that stuff is made of."

"Stuff and nonsense."

One joke follows another. Time is their friend right now. He tries to answer her smile.

The door opens. "Breaking news," Hawkmoth tells them. "Ladybug and Chat Noir have abandoned you."

Adrien snorts, sparking pain in his bleeding cheek. "I'll believe that when I see it."

Hawkmoth grabs Adrien by his hair; his rapier slides stinging across Adrien's throat, so Paris can see the trickle of blood. "Then where are they?"

Marinette meets Adrien's eyes. He hears the heel of her hand thud into the wooden chair leg.

The cuff falls from his right wrist, then his left. Plagg leaps back into his lungs.

" _Sir!_ " shouts Nathalie from the corridor. Hawkmoth turns his head.

Adrien rocks his chair back: the ankle cuffs slide right off its legs. Marinette stands, the belt falling away, and picks up her chair and puts it between Hawkmoth's sword and Adrien; he yanks the belt holding him off and bounds upright.

Marinette's chair splits in pieces and Adrien and Marinette leap away from Hawkmoth's sword. Marinette snatches the other chair and swings it. Adrien lunges for Hawkmoth's throat, for his brooch—

The sword bites into Adrien's left bicep and scrapes across bone: he wants to scream—

Hawkmoth does scream. The sword leaps free, _Marinette_ leveling it at Hawkmoth's heart.

Adrien's left arm is hanging painfully useless. But so is Hawkmoth's right wrist.

Gabriel Agreste is not left-handed.

"New plan," says Marinette, breathing hard, staring Hawkmoth down. "Give Adrien your Miraculous and I _won't_ break your other two hundred bones."

"Don't, Marinette," says Adrien, watching Hawkmoth. Outside the room he can hear fighting. "Good guys don't torture."

Marinette flicks him a glance. "He hurt you."

"Tomorrow," says Adrien, steadily, because someone has to be the emotional rock right now, "I want you to look in the mirror, and still like who you see."

She stands unmoving.

"Besides," Adrien says, putting his useful hand over hers on the sword hilt, "he hurt you. I want to kill him."

Marinette lets him take the sword.

Adrien holds the blade to the side of Hawkmoth's neck. "You're not keeping that Miraculous," he tells him; Hawkmoth is staring down at him in disbelief, focused wholly on the sword in Adrien's barely-trembling hand. "Whether you're headed to prison or the morgue once we get it is entirely up to you."

Hawkmoth's eyes narrow. Something thuds in the corridor.

Adrien presses the blade inwards, enough to break the skin.

The sword evaporates in a burst of violet light, leaving Gabriel Agreste's white jacket and red slacks in place of Hawkmoth's purple and black.

Marinette dives around the little table to grab the man by his tie and yank. She snatches the pin below it off his shirt and bolts, Adrien right behind her.

Rena Rouge is driving a blue-gowned woman—the Peacock wielder; Nathalie—down the corridor, wielding her flute like a baton. Carapace is a step behind her until he spots Adrien and Marinette: he steps around Rena, shield raised, to force Nathalie against the wall so Marinette and Adrien can pass, Adrien clutching his bleeding arm to his chest, the cuffs on each ankle clanking. Rena breaks off her attack to follow them, the sound of Carapace's boots behind her.

They hurry through Adrien's bedroom door and Carapace slams it shut and locks it. "Adrien, grab what you can't live without," he orders, staying two meters from the door. "You've got three minutes."

Adrien's already moving to unlock his desktop and plug in the nearest flash drive, as Plagg pops both pairs of cuffs off him. There's nothing here he can't abandon, except the folder of files he can't trust to cloud servers without risking his partner's wrath. "Cheese in the mini fridge," he tells them all.

"Barricade," Marinette says, breathless, and Adrien looks over: she's shoving his couch toward the door. "Rena, Mirage. I want people to see Ladybug and Chat Noir coming in the bathroom window."

"Marinette, they're—" begins Rena.

"Less arguing!" Marinette glares at Carapace, who relents to come help her, though he keeps his shield closest to the door. "Mirage now. Grab some cheese and feed Trixx in the bathroom, I don't care what he would rather eat. We will need another Mirage on the way out."

"Or you could leave now and I'll cover your retreat," Carapace suggests, bounding over the couch, and turns to shove it into place.

"I know you noticed that bakery run is under the Ninja Turtles creators' names," Marinette snaps. Something slams into the barricaded door.

Adrien, his file transfer complete, stuffs the flash drive in his pocket. "What the lady means is," he says, less patiently than he'd like, "we need spectators to see Ladybug and Chat Noir arrive, so no one realizes they're already here." Marinette looks up from the mini fridge, arms full of Camembert. He winks at her. "Plagg, claws out!"

Rena Rouge lets out a low whistle and bolts for the bathroom. "Mirage!" he hears her say.

Marinette dumps the cheese wheels on the bathroom floor. "Tikki, spots on!" A burst of red light, and Ladybug is beside Chat Noir; one of orange, and he knows Alya is hiding in the shower. Ladybug looks at him. "Your face looks fine," she says, dropping the Butterfly Miraculous into storage in her yo-yo; now she says that, he notices the blood on her neck is gone. "How's your arm?"

"Crappy," Chat says, flexing it. It hurts less and the armor doesn't look damaged or stained. But he only needs to look unhurt, and he can wield his staff with only his right hand. "I'll be fine."

Orange light sparks in the bathroom again. The bedroom door blows open, the couch slamming into Carapace's shield, sending him skidding back. Nathalie bursts in, peacock fan at the ready, and Gabriel right behind her.

" _Where's my son?_ " Gabriel demands.

Ladybug and Carapace move to engage Nathalie. Chat grabs one of the four pairs of handcuffs off the floor and fixes Gabriel with a stare expressing the only emotion he intends to ever again let his father see: contempt. " _Your_ son?"

Gabriel throws himself forward with a snarl of rage. Chat Noir sidesteps and trips him, claps the cuff on the broken wrist with his left hand, drags the man over to the stripper pole with his right.

A moment later, Chat cuffs Gabriel's second wrist to the pole and turns: Ladybug has Nathalie bound in her yo-yo. "Good idea," Ladybug says, looking Gabriel over, and Carapace collects the other two pairs of handcuffs while Ladybug hauls Nathalie over to the pole.

Then the Peacock Miraculous is in Chat Noir's hand, and Nathalie is back in slacks and cuffed and coughing, and Gabriel is looking at Ladybug and pleading, "She needs medical attention."

"Carapace," says Ladybug, all emotional wrinkles ironed out of her tone.

Something pops open on Carapace's shield. "Your turn, Queen Bee," he says. "We have the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses, we chained Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur to Adrien's firehouse pole for the arresting officers' convenience, and the others are getting Marinette and Adrien the fuck out of here." He pauses, leveling a stare at Gabriel, as Ladybug heads for the bathroom. "Agreste says Sancoeur needs medical attention."

"On it, Carapace," Chat hears Queen Bee say.

Chat starts for the bathroom, then turns back to Carapace, who seems intent on standing guard. "It's a stripper pole," he says. "I'm sure Adrien said 'firehouse pole' when he asked for it, but it is definitely a stripper pole."

Carapace glances at him, ignoring as deliberately as Chat is Gabriel's furious face, and grins. "Get lost," he says.

Chat tips him a salute and closes the bathroom door behind himself.

Rena's waiting, flute ready. Ladybug shows Chat her yo-yo, on which she's typed _illusion CN & M east, real LB & A north, RR to home_. Chat nods, hands her the Peacock Miraculous, steps into the shower stall, and drops his transformation.

Adrien—his arm _hurts_ —trades places with Rena; her whispered "Mirage!" conjures a Chat Noir holding a Marinette, who leap out the open window, and it hides Rena herself from sight. "Bye!" she whispers, and a beat later Ladybug scoops Adrien into her arms and follows.

Neither speaks until Ladybug sets Adrien with undue gentleness on Marinette's balcony. "Inside," she says, popping open the skylight. Adrien drops onto Marinette's bed and clears the deck; Ladybug follows, opening her yo-yo as she leaps to the main level. She drops the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses into her people-eating diary box. "Dibs on the bathroom!" Her transformation falls as she opens the trap door.

Adrien climbs down the ladder. "Plagg?" he says, dropping onto the chaise, though he meant to follow Marinette downstairs. His legs don't want to hold him anymore. He needs to pee, he needs to eat, he needs to clean his wounds—

"I know, kit," Plagg says, flying up to rub his face on Adrien's cheek. "I know." He darts across the room to the vanity, fills the glass at the sink, and floats it back with him. "Drink," Plagg orders.

He should probably do that too.

Marinette comes back up a few minutes later with a trayful of confections (Tikki's already eating a cookie), some bread, a lot of cheese (Plagg dives on it), a pitcher of ice water, and two more glasses. "Rose and Juleka are keeping the bakery running," she tells Adrien as she sets things down. "At least till they run out of what got baked before Maman and Papa left with the police. I called Maman and they're coming back here. There will be paramedics and police with them. Queen Bee is staying with the police for a while longer, but Chloé says you can get a room on her tab till you're eighteen at least. If you want. Alya and probably Nino want to be here for you but they're waiting for you to say what you need." She stops, watching him. "Adrien?"

"Thanks," Adrien says.

Marinette takes the glass of water from his trembling hand. "You sound like shit," she tells him. "Look like it too. Bathroom's downstairs. If you don't want to talk to the police, I won't let them bother you, and—if you want to go enjoy Chloé's hospitality," she says, hesitant and blushing and avoiding his eye, "of course that's okay, but—please not tonight? You can sleep on my balcony chair. Or my chaise. I just—don't go anywhere, all right?"

"All right," Adrien agrees. He doesn't want to move anything anyway.

She sighs. "Look at me, please?"

He doesn't want to, but because she's asking, he will.

"I saw your face fall when I said I'd kick you for complimenting my legs," Marinette says. "I don't think there's much else I can fix for you today, but—I know I never told you this, Adrien. Not for want of effort," she adds, rolling her eyes. "I guess I never told Chat you either. Not specifically, unless we're counting that bold-faced lie that got Papa akumatized. Except I don't think I was lying at all."

Adrien blinks at her, confused.

"Who am I in love with, Chat?" Marinette asks. "Did I ever say?"

He shrugs. From Ladybug, he has never heard a name.

"He's one of the kindest people I've ever met," Marinette tells him. "He's sweet, and loyal, and dedicated, and funny." Each word punches a new hole in his heart, this description of someone he can never surpass. "But his comedic timing needs work, and he keeps getting himself hurt so I won't be, and I don't know how to get him to understand there's a time and place for flirting and mid-battle is not it. And today he threatened to kill a man with his own sword, because he didn't want me to do anything I'd regret."

Wait a minute.

No, that doesn't—it won't—there is no making sense of this. "Did Sabrina call her father?" Adrien asks instead. "I think I can talk to him. Rogercop. He'll understand."

"I'm sure we can make that happen," Marinette says.

Adrien pours a glass of ice water, replaces the pitcher, takes a drink. He can hear voices downstairs. There's probably a paramedic around, and he really wants to stop bleeding. Bathroom first, though. He stands up; Marinette steadies him.

He pauses before getting to the trap door. "Nice legs," he says. Because maybe—

"I was wondering if you'd circle back to that," Marinette says, laughing. "Yours are acute too."

—Maybe this is real.

Adrien starts down the ladder. Marinette catches him two rungs down: leans in, drops a light kiss on his lips.

"Oh," says Adrien, feeling his face heat up, his heart pound, and Marinette, blushing, smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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